Observations on language, literature, and other interesting phenomena

Menu

Words I Hate For No Particular Reason

Munch. Why do we need it? We have perfectly good words that indicate eating. Munch sounds like a combination of something an animal would do and something an animal would eat. I suppose that’s somewhat silly, considering the fact that we humans are, in fact, animals, and it does, in fact, describe what an animal does when it eats. However, it feels to me like it indicates some kind of mindless, gratuitous eating but without even enjoying it. What the hell is the point of that? If you are the kind of person who just eats because you have to, then you’re not eating gratuitously, so there’s no need to “munch.” And if you are eating mindlessly, shouldn’t you be doing it because you are enjoying it? Then it would be ‘snacking’ or ‘indulging’ or hell, even ‘enjoying’! But no munching, please. Yes yes, there are those who might say that someone could very well be enjoying whatever it is they are ‘munching’ on (it even irks me to have to use that word when complaining about it!) but you just won’t convince me that it’s any different than a slack-eyed cow standing around chewing her cud all day long, which just seems gross to me. Finally, that awful word also, in my admittedly biased mind, means that you can hear the action of chewing, and that folks, is just plain disgusting.